Liquid crystal panels used as displays for laptop personal computers and other electronic equipment have been fabricated by bonding leads of electronic components on the peripheral portion of the liquid crystal panels.
The electronic components are packaged in a tape carrier package (hereafter referred to as TCP) by using the tape automated bonding method (TAB method), and are obtained by stamping out from a TAB tape with a metal mold.
Electrodes of the liquid crystal panel and leads of the electronic components are both numerous and as small as 100 .mu.m in pitch so that recognition and positioning of both the electrodes and the leads has to be conducted with high precision.
Since many electronic components have to be bonded on to one liquid crystal panel, high speed bonding is preferable.
Automatic bonding apparatus for bonding electronic components to a liquid crystal panel are described in Japanese Patent Provisional Publication No. 186652/1990, Provisional Publication No. 294047/1990, and Provisional Publication No. 123803/1991 (incorporated herein by reference).
In the bonding apparatus set forth in these Provisional Publications, an electronic component which has been recognized at a tentative recognition stage is conveyed by means of a mounting head to a liquid crystal panel placed on a substrate recognition stage, where recognition of the relative position between electrodes of the liquid crystal panel and leads of the electronic component is carried out and thereafter the bonding of both is accomplished.
In the conventional bonding apparatus for electronic components as described above, bonding is conducted by means of one mounting head. For this reason, productivity is low and high-speed bonding is difficult.